Journal of Exceptional Childre
Year:2007 | Volume:6 | Issue:4 (22)|Papers Count:9

Objective: This article investigates the relationship between visual-motor integration and handwriting. Method: From 157 mentally retarded students studying in the exceptional children schools in Shahr-e Rey, 126 mentally retarded students (53 girls and 73 boys) ageing from 9 to 19 participated in this study. A researcher-made handwriting checklist and the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) were used to assess all of the students. Result: The correlation coefficient showed that there exists a significant relationship between handwriting scores with VMI scores(r = 0/472, p<0/0001). The most common impaired legibility component in the sample was "interruption during writing words" with 81% and the least common was "spacing between letters and words" with 34.9%. Conclusion: This study stresses that visual-motor integration in mentally retarded children must be evaluated by the related professional.

Objective: This study investigates the impact of early morning physical exercises on reduction of aggression in children with mental retardation. Method: 14 male students with educable mental retardation ageing 9 to 17 year old, with an available method, from one school were selected, and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The research was conducted according to the semi -experimental method using pre-test, post-test design and follow-up for the control group. Results: The result of the statistical analysis through repeated measure design revealed a significant difference between the two groups. After a one-month follow-up, the results were stable and the finding showed that early morning exercises could significantly reduce the amount of aggression in the students with educable mental retardation.Conclusion: This research shows that morning physical exercises can be considered as a useful way to be used to help children with mental retardation.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and the relationship with measures of depression and anxiety in students studying in Shiraz special middle schools for talented students. Method: 500 students filled out the CERQ, SCL-90-R depression and anxiety subscales. Cronbach alpha, factor analysis, and the subscale-total score correlations were used to study the reliability and validity of the CERQ. Results: The results supported the reliability and validity of the CERQ and demonstrated that excluding the respondent gender, self-blame, rumination, positive reappraisal, catastrophizing, and blame-others were the best predictors of depression and anxiety in these students. Conclusion: We can conclude that cognitive emotion regulation strategies could be important factors probably in the depression and anxiety etiology and treatment.

Objective: The purpose of this research was to study the effect of narrative therapy on depressive children. Method: 5 forth and fifth grade children with depression participated in this semi-experimental design. The research design was pretest- postiest without control group. All subjects were evaluated by CSI-4. Then the narrative therapy was used in 24 sessions (60 minutes - two times in a week). Result: The narrative therapy could ameliorate depression and comorbid disorders including anxiety and oppositional defiant disorders. Conclusion: These results indicate that narrative therapy could be used as an important technique for treatment of emotional and behavioral difficulties in children.

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to determine the prevalence of arithmetic disorder among school children in grades two to five in Ardebil. Method: Taking into consideration the proportion of students in the Ardebil land 2 districts, 6 schools from district 1 and 4 schools from district 2 were selected that comprised a total of 1171 children from grade 2 to grade 5. In order to examine the children's performance in arithmetic, a Standardized Battery of Arithmetic was used. Results: Findings revealed that 44 children scored two standard deviations below the mean and were diagnosed as having arithmetic disorder and a prevalence of 3.76 was estimated. The rate of prevalence of arithmetic disorder among boys was twice as among girls. The prevalence of arithmetic disorder in elementary school children of Ardebil is in agreement with some other similar studies in other places. Conclusion: This considerably high rate of arithmetic disorder prevalence among children calls for more rigorous educational interventions.

Objective: Phonological awareness is a meta-linguistic skill and it means as awareness of the word's phonological structure. As word's phonological structure is divided to three levels as phonemic, syllabic, and intra syllabic levels; the phonological awareness is also three leveled. This skill develops and progresses during the childhood and it has specific developmental stages. Phonological awareness has an effect on reading and writing abilities seriously and it can predict dyslexia the very good. Conclusion: This skill is related to reading, writing and to speech and language processing systems. Both teaching and learning to read and write are facilitated and accelerated by using phonological awareness programs alongside the other educational methods. Eventually, it is important to be familiar with phonological awareness testing and its educational utilization.